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Quadruped robots are progressively being integrated into human environments. Despite the growing locomotion capabilities of quadrupedal robots, their interaction with objects in realistic scenes is still limited. While additional robotic…
Recently, animating portrait images using audio input is a popular task. Creating lifelike talking head videos requires flexible and natural movements, including facial and head dynamics, camera motion, realistic light and shadow effects.…
Generating high-fidelity garment animations through traditional workflows, from modeling to rendering, is both tedious and expensive. These workflows often require repetitive steps in response to updates in character motion, rendering…
This paper presents the design, characterization and validation of a wearable haptic device able to convey skin stretch, force feedback, and a combination of both, to the user's arm. In this work, we carried out physical and perceptual…
Shape-changing interfaces are promising for users to change the physical properties of common objects. However, prevailing approaches of actuation devices require either professional equipment or materials that are not commonly accessible…
Teaching an anthropomorphic robot from human example offers the opportunity to impart humanlike qualities on its movement. In this work we present a reinforcement learning based method for teaching a real world bipedal robot to perform…
Legged robots promise higher versatility and the ability to traverse much more difficult terrains than their wheeled counterparts. Even though the use of legged robots have increased drastically in the last few years, they are still not…
Learning controllers that reproduce legged locomotion in nature has been a long-time goal in robotics and computer graphics. While yielding promising results, recent approaches are not yet flexible enough to be applicable to legged systems…
As robots enter the messy human world so the vital matter of safety takes on a fresh complexion with physical contact becoming inevitable and even desirable. We report on an artistic-exploration of how dancers, working as part of a…
Physical interactions can often help reveal information that is not readily apparent. For example, we may tug at a table leg to evaluate whether it is built well, or turn a water bottle upside down to check that it is watertight. We propose…
Impressive animal locomotion capabilities are mediated by the co-evolution of the skeletal morphology and muscular properties. Legged robot performance would also likely benefit from the co-optimization of actuators and leg morphology.…
Synthesizing graceful and life-like behaviors for physically simulated characters has been a fundamental challenge in computer animation. Data-driven methods that leverage motion tracking are a prominent class of techniques for producing…
Objects that move in response to the actions of a main character often make an important contribution to the visual richness of an animated scene. We use the term "secondary motion" to refer to passive motions generated in response to the…
Soft robots can exhibit diverse behaviors with simple types of actuation by partially outsourcing control to the morphological and material properties of their soft bodies, which is made possible by the tight coupling between control, body,…
Autonomous robots have the potential to serve as versatile caregivers that improve quality of life for millions of people worldwide. Yet, conducting research in this area presents numerous challenges, including the risks of physical…
The current capabilities of robotic systems make human collaboration necessary to accomplish complex tasks effectively. In this work, we are introducing a framework to ensure safety in a human-robot collaborative environment. The system is…
Mobile robot platforms will increasingly be tasked with activities that involve grasping and manipulating objects in open world environments. Affordance understanding provides a robot with means to realise its goals and execute its tasks,…
For safe and effective operation of humanoid robots in human-populated environments, the problem of commanding a large number of Degrees of Freedom (DoF) while simultaneously considering dynamic obstacles and human proximity has still not…
World Action Models (WAMs) enhance Vision-Language-Action policies by jointly predicting scene evolution and robot actions, but existing methods usually represent the predicted world as holistic images, video tokens, or global latents.…
People are constantly in touch with surfaces in their lives, such as a sofa, armrest, and table, making them natural tactile interfaces. Despite the recent advancements in shape-changing surfaces, current available solutions are often…